Thursday, February 27, 2014

GREENVILLE, N.C. -- Observations from the 49ers 75-68 loss at East Carolina on Thursday:

-- One upshot of the 49ers' six-game losing streak: they're playing their way toward Tuesday in the five-day Conference USA tournament, and that wouldn't be a good thing for Charlotte. The 49ers (14-13, 5-9) have dropped into a four-way tie for 10th place with East Carolina, Florida Atlantic and Florida International (which isn't eligible for the tournament because of APR issues). The league's bottom six teams will play three first-round games on Tuesday, meaning that five games in five days would be necessary for any one of them to make Saturday's championship game. Only UTSA, Marshall and Rice are below the 49ers now.

-- Charlotte had already lost four games to conference teams with RPIs of 200 or lower (Tulane, Marshall, UTSA and Rice) coming into Thursday's game. East Carolina had an RPI of 195.

-- Charlotte had a 34-14 edge in points in the paint against the Pirates, but couldn't overcome ECU's 12-of-27 night from 3-point range. Pirates senior Akeem Richmond hit 8 of 14. He entered the game as the country's leader in 3-point attempts, second in 3s made and third in 3s made per game.

-- East Carolina led 21-2 early, but Charlotte outscored the Pirates 22-11 the rest of the half and 44-43 in the second half. The 49ers had eight turnovers in the first 10 minutes of the game, but only eight the rest of the way.

-- This isn't the longest losing streak in coach Alan Major's four seasons. Charlotte lost the last eight games of the 2010-11 season, Major's first.

Hey Anon 11:40 ... START listening???? We're at the end of a 30+ game season and four seasons of being worse at the end of the year than the beginning. They have been listening - that's the problem. Just maybe it's not the players.

Incredible how ridiculous this has become. Cue the clown car music. How many players walk away this year? How can you possibly sell tickets for this product going forward? Major gives his players no support in the games. Mouse on the bench. Invisible in the huddle. Afraid of the zebras.

Please stop blaming or referring to Lutz. You need psychiatric help if you do. Major stinks, bottom line, he can't coach nor can he motivate. His assistants stink too. His players are not committed to winning and they obviously were lucky in Puerto Rico. They should hire Quin Snyder, who can run circles around Major, another guy who road coattails at a Bigger Program.

Major is right on pase with Coach K at this point in their careers.....To fire him now would be a mistake! We cant afford to pay him and Lutz and a new coach next year so we might as well stop talking about it! Lets see what he can do with the guys he has coming in next year. Hopefully we will have gotten rid of all the cancers. I will not stop supporting MY TEAM like many of you Negative Nancys.

You folks who support Major how do you justify no winning conference seasons in his 4 years, and what will be his third losing season in 4 years? He didn't inherit a terrible program. He has shown nothing other than the ability to say nothing in his press conferences. Snow flakes, Tweety Bird, crawling through Willie's head, honoring the game, etc. How about building an identity - outside of not winning in Feb and March - and show us how you can keep players? Sunday is a joke of a "senior" day. He has been here 4 years and all we have to show for it is a 5th year senior who had a senior day at Tulane last year and leaves his third college this year. And, how can we be fiscally responsible as an athletic department and lose money for 5 straight years and sell less season TD than we ever gave at Halton. The 4 of the 5 worst attendance years in Halton. I could go on, but it us mind numbing.

And, will David Scott ever challenge Judy Rose or Phil Dubois and ask what the hell they were thinking with (1) his hiring and (2) his ridiculous, thoughtless let me show you we were right extension?

I can't, for the life of me, understand how Alan Major still has a job. I must assume the only reason he still does, is that the AD is every bit as incompetent as he is. It saddens me to see how far the program has fallen.

I'll give money to the school. It is time for the Alumni, students and supporters of the team to come out and support the team. Major is not going anywhere because of the class coming in next year and the year after. He did not have a good team when he got here and is working hard to build up the program, but it is going to take time. I give him next year.